Burnt Flowers Fallen
by Scratches
Summary: Severus contemplates early in his seventh year about a Seer and what she had carved into his desk. A letter to the Great Zabini about his old relationship with Remus. SSRL SLASH


Author-Scratches (alias- ZwergBergen) Date- November 3, 2003 Disclaimer- I own nothing in this story except the character Estella whose last name I graciously borrowed from JKR and her lovely books, I own the plot, and that is all. JKR owns much of everything else, rich witch.  
  
Pairings- Remus/Severus James/Lily  
  
Spoilers- ehh.. don't read it if you haven't read all the books ^_^  
  
WARNINGS- Slash! Not a lot, but the mentionings of dirty deeds and the such. So if m/m squicks you, push your back space and return to my author page! -grin- I love you!  
  
A/n1- This is a one shot deal, no ifs an's or but's about it! This is something I wrote after listening to a little too much Type O Negative, Song to listen to while reading this, Burnt Flowers Fallen.  
  
They say that Hogwarts is one of the most magical places in all of the world. It sits upon the Hogs Head Mountain on the center of magical vertices going each and every which way, I kind of sound like a bad E. E. Cummings poem, don't I? But that, my fair friends, is beyond the point.  
So, I've been going to the most magical school of all the land for just over six years now since my seventh has just started, and for the past year I've had my arms around one of the most intriguing people that has ever entered the buildings door.  
And I love him, and I think I always will, even though he has broken me in at least two different pieces, maybe more, but no less. There I am again, rambling off into unknown sentences that just don't know how to stop. Am I making any sense at all? I sure hope I am.  
As I look at the past two weeks, the start of my seventh year, I wonder how he ever did love me. He traipses around with his other three friends like nothing ever happened, and which I can assure you, things most definitely did happen. I don't just let my first kiss be relinquished by just anybody, I thought that I was special to him, that we could pull through the war together and after we could maybe settle down and become a bit domestic. You know the kind of family, yes you do. The family with two point five children and a dog, who's biggest worry is why the house elf hadn't washed the bedding, for they sure had to be changed a lot, if you get my drift.  
Back to Hogwarts because it is where we are, and where we met, and how we hated and how we loved. It is magical here, and I will be the first to admit it with everything I own, spiritual and material. It's a place where many find their true love, take in example number one, James Potter and Lily Evans.  
They are two ramshackle Gryffindors who have no clue what they want to do with themselves when they get out of Hogwarts. Yeah, so they are going to get married after graduation and probably are going to have those two point five children before most everybody else in the school, before some of the teachers too. But those two, how they used to fight with each other. It was the same with him and I. How we used to spit words at each other and how we used to get up in defense and hex each other into an oblivion.  
Once I remember in fifth year, right after the incident that we were dueling in Defense and I had just learned and new spell, Serpensortia, and he countered my spitting snake with a light wave of his wand letting all of these orange sparks fly out of his wand. Not only did it expel my snake; we both were sent into detention that night because they were dangerous spells that we shouldn't even know about.  
And they wonder why ol' Tommy-boy is rising in all of his power. You have to fight dark arts with dark arts sometimes. Hell, how do you think the Egyptians got their land back from the Nubians. It wasn't some soddy light versus dark battle where the Egyptians won their throne, it wasn't a government thing, and it wasn't muggle warfare. It was good old summoning of their death demons to expel the infiltration of disease that had started to infect their people; they saved their skins.  
You are probably trying to figure out how Dark Arts are fitting into all of this writing. I'm not quite sure at the moment how they are fitting in at the moment either. I know my parents are more than knee deep in Dark Arts, hell my family is practically swimming the dealings of the Dark Wizards. We might not fight along side with every one, but we have out priorities set straight. We know what side we support, and I must say that I am rather disappointed to be writing this because I know that Dumbledore and his people are going to win someday.  
It won't be in the near future, or that is what Estella Zabini is predicting. She's not too favoured down here in the dungeons anymore. She used to be the life of the party last year, one of the most beautiful girls to ever be sorted into Slytherin, and one of the most dangerous. She was so nimble and quiet for the past five and a half years, but once her oldest sister had been sent away to Liechtenstein to enter the elite women Death Eaters, her divination came clearer and clearer. Dumbledore had to step in and he gave her her own room in the dark recesses of the Dungeons because she would wake up half the house screaming in her sleep.  
You would think it was a terrible thing to do to a student to more or less lock them away after the school day, but it helped her, it helped me, and it helped Remus.  
Remus James Lupin and I were sent down to tutor Estella at the end of fifth year when she started to fail Potions and Defense on request of Dumbledore, and that was when the predictions started to occur.  
I suppose the Zabini family told half of the prophecies down in the Department of Mysteries. Very strong Inner Eye each one of them has, it dates back to the early fifteenth century when they first came to England and attended Hogwarts School. And I was surprised that the Zabini's weren't in cahoots with the Dark Lord. He probably didn't want to here about his demise from a sixteen-year-old girl.  
I know I went off on a tangent, but this is a vital part of the story, I promise.  
So the both of us were easily the best at our subjects, we were suppose to go down at around five o'clock every night and help her study on her subjects until around six thirty when dinner was to be served in the Great Hall. But most of the time, we didn't get half of what we wanted done.  
Her waist length black hair was hanging down her back and pooled around her back as she sat in the middle of her room. It was on the ancient Oriental rug that she seemed to have most of the visions, or that was what I gathered. She never did have one in class, or she would, and we wouldn't notice, I tried to keep tabs on her, but being the sixth year now, we had much different schedules. So she'd sit there on her rug, potions book open in front of her, wand at her side and she'd stare into the blue gray stone walls that held not one tapestry or picture. To be quite honest, the only colour in the room other than black was the rug, the rug and her eyes. Every single Zabini known to man has these shocking orange eyes. Some of the oranges being darker, almost brown, but hers were the brightest pair of eyes I had ever seen in my life. They were the colour of a Jack-o-Lantern being lit from the inside with an obscenely bright candle letting the glow light more than it should have ever been allowed to. Unblinking, she'd have a quill in her hand and a stack of parchment in the other, and she'd write out what she was seeing. Sometimes, Remus and I had to skip dinner because she wasn't done, and we were afraid to let her be alone, who knows what a lone Slytherin Seer would be capable of? We'd watch until she snapped out of her trance and with a smile, most of the time, she'd look at us and grab all the parchments into her hands before saying something highly motivational, or completely morbid. For example, she once told us, these words, I will never forget. "For two people that put on a pretense for everyone else, you are making it harder for the two of you. The true love will surface one day, but it may be too late and there are many fates that I see for the both of you and all of them intertwined with the next. Two coexisting souls cannot battle with each other, it only makes it worse."  
There was another prediction, a morbid prediction, and a prediction that even made Dumbledore's spine tingle. "A date in the future, but ominously close, will determine the fate for two wizards." All she had written down that day after she had seen for just over three hours (Remus and I had got bored and done her Defense and Potions for her, I might as well add) was 31/7/80, 27/4/36, 31/10/81. I still haven't the faintest ideas what they might mean. The first and last are two dates that are in the future and ominously close, for it is the very year of 1976, but the middle date is so far back, before my father was even born, and I can't breach the gap of how it pertains to anything. Although, it must mean something if Dumbledore jerked when he had heard it.  
It was one of the study sessions at the beginning of the sixth year that she wasn't tranced out, that she told us just to fuck and get it over with. Seriously, those were her straight out words. Crazy Zabini family, always so blunt, I remember her mother telling me that my hair was too greasy once and that I had to wash it. I'm not say it isn't true, it's just the way my hair is, stupid Greek genes. I didn't take offense to it, I just paid more attention to my personal bubble from there to here, not that I need to keep it looking good for anyone anymore. The two people who brightened my day, are now gone.  
The girl of my dreams, she was like a sister, her own sister murdered her during the summer, and I still haven't recovered from it. Most people think I'm a heartless git, but if any of them went to her funeral two weeks before term and saw how broken up I was about the whole thing, they wouldn't ever say a nasty word about me again. I poured my eyes out to her open casket, her eyes closed, something I rarely had ever seen, something I never want to see again. I don't like the look of death, and the funny thing is was that she knew it was coming. At the end of the sixth year, she gave me the Oriental rug that she sat upon during the year, she gave Remus her collection of healing stones and her tarot cards.  
It was a loss to both of us. More to me, I think. I had known her since I was a younger kid, she was always at my house for parties with her family and during the holidays we'd play friendly games of quidditch, but she knew they were to end, and she didn't tell anyone, other than Dumbledore, I suppose. Then again, I'm sure that the Dumbledores themselves are some sort of seers. He has this uncanny ability to know of everything that happens under the roof of Hogwarts, the magical prison we all are confined to year in, and year out.  
She also knew what Remus was. I mean being a seer of her caliber it probably didn't faze her to know he was a werewolf. I mean, when I first saw Remus Lupin as the big bad wolf, I was scared shitless. But, we had to get over it to tutor Estella. Thank Isis for Estella, she broke down so much between us and told us so much about ourselves that we didn't want to know. How we both adored her.  
I remember her telling us both, "Now Severus when my Nephew comes to Hogwarts, you keep one blasted eye on him at all times, that weedy little tyke is going to get you both so high you won't be able to get down from the ceiling. You watch him until his sixth year when he has to leave this blasted place. That, Remus, is when you will watch over him, you watch over him like a hawk. Once he gets bitten, you let him into your pack, it's vital, it's vital." She had shook Remus by his shoulders by then, physically shaking him until he agreed to take the boy under his wing for the short time.  
But she knew, she knew her time was up, and that scared me. Did she possibly know what was going to happen to the rest of us in the future; did she know when we were all going to perish? All those dates she would write down on the parchment all coming clear to me now.  
I loved her, and she's gone, quite like Remus.  
He's not dead though, that is where their similarities end. They both left me and I loved them both.  
Estella couldn't help it, but Remus, why did he leave me?  
All he had to explain for himself was that it was 'too rocky, too intense." Yeah, we had been shagging for a while by the train ride back to school on the first when he so humbly told me we couldn't see each other anymore. He frolics around the grounds with Sirius Black, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew, who I know is more than what he seems. Double-edged sword, isn't that what they used as an analogy for a two faced bastard? Maybe I just made it up, but I like it. He dumped me because of what his friends were saying; I know it. It's not a hidden fact that Black, Potter, and I hate each other. But, can't they give two men their happiness? I see the looks Remus casts my way during meals and during our Defense classes.  
I saw the look of pure loathing when he burned every pressed Lycan- Detura and every single little letter I wrote to him. He burned them out in the middle of the quidditch pitch the second day back. I don't know what I did to hurt him, I've tried to talk to him about it, but Black, Black won't let him out of his sight. It's like Black had taken him in as his lap dog, which in all possibilities might be true. I don't understand how I am supposed to react to everything going around me. The war, Estella dying like she did, the school, Remus, my summons, everything is in a foggy haze for me.  
The only thing I can think of is that he fell out of love. He fell out of love and fell hard, refusing to get back up when he knows that is what he should do. He's too proud you see? Wolves have their pride. Proud creatures they all are, yes indeed.  
I just wish he hadn't burned everything we had between each other, that's what hurts the most.  
Even though we both knew this day was to come.  
  
Severus looked down at his desk, fingering the numbers that Estella had carved into it before the end of the year, 1/9/76. He thumbed the small- carved flame next to it and let a small tear fall onto the parchment he had just signed in his blood. He was a little morbid, but that is what Estella had told him in her last letter, "You write it all out, sign it in blood, then hold it over my grave in the grove. I'll do the rest." That letter had been dated August 14, 1976 the very day she was to be murdered. She had sent it off just as her sister had pulled her wand on her, and she was ready, Estella that was, and Severus knew it. Even though it pained his heart, he knew it was her time to go, she held her duty and held it well within the ministry, or that was what Dumbledore had said. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
An2- I know, ended kind of abruptly. I love Angst!Severus and Plainhardtoget!Remus. I hope you all got wind of my Estella Zabini, I've been pushing around her for a while, and she HAD to get out in this ficcie, or she was going to beat me up. She sent soldiers to my window the other night because she was pissed off at me. It was spooky, or maybe I had too many Firewiskey's? -wink- I said this is a one shot. But, if you all like it, and send it to all your kiddie friends, I might just write another one. Yeah, I know how I am about updating stuff, but this, I promise you! I really liked writing this, I really did believe it or not. I love Remus/Severus. I'm a sap and a goober. Estella is having a prediction, hold on. . . .. . "On November 28 2003 The Infamous Scratches is going to write more to this because she got 20 reviews and she is going to update it the next time she is at school." I love Estella, can I be in love with my own characters? -shruggs-  
  
Tell me what YOU think!! Soundtrack- Type o Negative- October Rust PT GRIMM- Tunes to amputate your face by David Bowie- ChagesBowie  
  
I love you all!! Scratches (Zwergbergen) 


End file.
